observed Dorothy, with a shrug.

"Oh, your big feet! Who can move them?" he rejoined.

"Big feet? Mine?" She bent, tore a satin shoe from her foot, and slapped
it down on the table in challenge to all to equal it--a small,
silver-buckled thing of Paddington's make, with a smart red heel and a
slender body, slim as the crystal slipper of romance.

There was no denying its shapeliness; presently she removed it, and,
stooping, slowly drew it on her foot.

"Is that the shoe Sir John drank your health from?" sneered Ruyven.

A rich flush mounted to Dorothy's hair, and she caught at her wine-glass
as though to throw it at her brother.

"A married man, too," he laughed--"Sir John Johnson, the fat baronet of
the Mohawks--"

"Damn you, will you hold your silly tongue?" she cried, and rose to
launch the glass, but I sprang to my feet, horrified and astounded, arm
outstretched.

"Ruyven," I said, sharply, "is it you who fling such a taunt to shame
your own kin? If there is aught of impropriety in what this man Sir John
has done, is it not our affair with him in place of a silly gibe
at Dorothy?"

"I ask pardon," stammered Ruyven; "had there been impropriety in what
that fool, Sir John, did I should not have spoke, but have acted long
since, Cousin Ormond."

"I'm sure of it," I said, warmly. "Forgive me, Ruyven."

"Oh, la!" said Dorothy, her lips twitching to a smile, "Ruyven only said
it to plague me. I hate that baronet, and Ruyven knows it, and harps
ever on a foolish drinking-bout where all fell to the table, even Walter
Butler, and that slow adder Sir John among the first. And they do say,"
she added, with scorn, "that the baronet did find one of my old shoon
and filled it to my health--damn him!--"

"Dorothy!" I broke in, "who in Heaven's name taught you such shameful
oaths?"

"Oaths?" Her face burned scarlet. "Is it a shameful oath to say 'Damn
him'?"

"It is a common oath men use--not gentlewomen," I said.

"Oh! I supposed it harmless. They all laugh when I say it--father and
Guy Johnson and the rest; and they swear other oaths--words I would not
say if I could--but I did not know there was harm in a good
smart 'damn!'"

She leaned back, one slender hand playing with the stem of her glass;
and the flush faded from her face like an afterglow from a
serene horizon.

"I fear," she said, "you of the South wear a polish we lack."

"Best mirror your faults in it while you have the chance," said Harry,
pr